


Dark Red Room

by sunlian



Series: tumblr prompts [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 2, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/F, Fluff, Injury Recovery, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Arishok Duel, Prompt Fill, minor character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlian/pseuds/sunlian
Summary: The mansion is dark, but she stays regardless. Merrill won't let Hawke wake up alone.





	Dark Red Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GothicPrincessWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothicPrincessWitch/gifts).



> Cross-post of a prompt from gothic-princess-witch, which I can't remember exactly. Still, it turned out okay! So I'm posting it here.

It’s hard to figure out which is worse.

When the Circle healers are here, the mansion feels less like home- too busy, too noisy, the underlying current of desperation that sets everyone even more on edge.

When they’re not here, it’s oppressively quiet. The hallways dark, the rooms foreboding. It doesn’t feel like people live here. It doesn’t feel like she lives here. It doesn’t feel like anyone lives here.

Merrill stays, regardless, because it’s her home even if it doesn’t fit yet, even if it’s lonely and empty.

She’s lost track of how long has passed since the Arishok duel, but she knows it’s been a few weeks. A few weeks since Hawke ended the qunari problem by cleaving their leader near in twain, before collapsing into a veritable pool of blood.

Hawke hadn’t woken up after that.

Oh, Hawke was alive- barely at first, but certainly still breathing. Laid up in the expansive bed that they shared, in the dark red room that no longer felt warm. And it hurt, to clamber into that bed and not be able to curl into Hawke’s side like she always does, or to rest her head on her shoulder and rest an arm on her stomach. But the alternative is leaving her alone in this big, empty house, so Merrill stays, slipping out only when visitors are there, or the healers.

She returns from such an outing, quietly leaving the purchased food in the kitchen to fix up later, moving up to the master bedroom out of habit.

As the door opens, she’s met with a quiet groan. Then something mumbled, too quiet and too raspy and rough to make out.

She’s at Hawke’s bedside in seconds, taking a limp hand into her own. Unfocused, half-open eyes struggle to stay open, searching her face before settling on her own wide green ones. The hand she has held squeezes her own, as tightly as she can probably manage.

Hawke sighs, lips twitching into the smallest smile, and Merrill’s certain she’s crying as she gently bumps her forehead against Hawke’s, kissing her once, then again, breaking to swallow back sobs as a damn she wasn’t even aware of break somewhere in her chest. Quiet laughter rumbles from Hawke’s chest, and Merrill laughs with her, in a hitched and teary way.

She doesn’t know how long she stayed like that, with Hawke, laughing and crying and kissing in that quiet way, but when she does stop, Hawke drifts off back to sleep, and Merrill, relief flooding her system like a strong drink, like a new magic, climbs into their bed, curls onto her side and holds Hawke’s hand in her own.

The red room, with embers creaking in its fireplace, no longer feels so hollow.


End file.
